We'll Never Meet Again
by TheSkandranon
Summary: Haru is caught swimming in the ocean when a storm blows up, will he make it to shore himself, or will a mysterious stranger have to help him? ReaderxHaru


A worried expression spread across your face as you watched a young man with blue tinted black hair fight his way against the vicious waves towards the safety of the shore. You were only a little worried about him because the young man in question was a strong and capable swimmer. You've often watched him come to the ocean during the warm season to let the salt water cradle him and float, with the most serene expression on his face. Other times he'd come with three, and sometimes four other young men, and they would swim and play together. He was the best swimmer of them, but he would often abstain from the play. Until one of the others (usually the small blond boy) goaded him into playing with them.

The young man with sea blue eyes took such obvious joy in the ocean that you couldn't help but have some kind of affection for him, even though he has never seen you. Unfortunately, that was the law of the merpeople, humans were not allowed to see them. If they did, then the humans would undoubtedly start hunting for more of your people and no one would ever be safe again.

And since the king was your father, the rule went double for you. You were your father's only child, and since your mother was now dead, you were most precious to him. He would not risk losing you, for the law stated that mermaid or merman that was seen had to be killed (because they brought danger to everyone), along with the human that saw them.

You of course didn't want to die, and be the cause of the young man's either. So you just sat on the rocks, with your (H/C) flaying in the merciless wind, watching the young man struggle with the waves.

You gasped as a particularly large wave loomed over him and then crashed over his head. You held your breath until you saw him resurface, cough up some water, and then continued to swim against the storm. Your relief was short lived as a piece of driftwood was flung out of the ocean and struck him on the side of his head.

You gasped in horror and covered your mouth with your hands as you watched him fall limp into the dark water

Without even thinking about the consequences for your actions you dived into the water towards where you last saw him. You knew you didn't have much time since humans couldn't breathe under water, so you swam at your top speed. After a few frantic seconds of searching for him, you spotted his pale skin below you.

You swung your (F/C) tail to push you down and raced after him. After what seemed like an eternity, your hand grabbed onto his and you immediately switched directions, pulling him behind you towards the surface.

As soon as you broke the surface you brought his head above the water. With your swimming abilities you were able to keep the both of you above water as you anxiously watched him. He was still unconscious, and not breathing. You didn't know what to do, you knew that humans had some way of forcing out of a person's lungs, but you never had to learn it. What were you going to do? You didn't want him to die.

You felt tears beginning to prick at your eyes when he coughed and took a huge breath.

You were so relieved that you hugged him tightly. As you did, you didn't notice him open his eyes for just a moment, and then close them again as he passed out.

After that brief moment of consciousness you started swimming to shore with your arm around his chest so he could float some as you pulled him to safety.

Ironically the storm ended soon after the whole ordeal. So you didn't have to worry about the sea taking him back after you had pulled him to shore. You couldn't pull him far enough away from the water to be free from danger from a storm since you didn't have legs.

Because of the storm the beach was deserted as you brought him up to lay on the sand, his hips and legs still in the water. You pulled yourself up beside him to check on him and realized he was breathing steadily, so no water was still in his lungs, but he was so cold.

You blushed at the thought that came to mind, and at first rejected it, but then he began to shiver. You looked around to see if anyone was coming, but there was no one.

_Well of course, _you thought to yourself_, there was just a major storm, they're all nice and safe in their homes._

You looked back at him, still hesitant, but he was still shivering quite a lot. So you carefully laid down next to him and reached your arms around him with reluctance as your blush increased.

The mermen were too intimidated by your father to make any kind of romantic overtures. As a result this was the first time you held a male in your arms besides your father. You rather liked the feeling and soon relaxed as your skin resumed its normal hues.

You didn't stay like that for long before you heard another male voice in the distance.

"Haru-chan?! Are you down there?!"

You looked up, startled as you saw one of the males that the young man in your arms hung out with the most often. The tall one with brown hair with a tint of green in it. You also liked that one, he seemed to have such a sweet and caring nature.

But you knew he shouldn't see you so you pulled yourself back into the water, hoping you did before the tall friend found the young man you had rescued.

You hid yourself behind an outcropping of rock and watched as the tall one reached the other.

XxXxXxXxX

Nanase Haruka woke to a blurry image hovering above him, and a splitting headache.

"Haru-can, you alright?"

The voice gave him something to ground himself with and he was able to focus on his friend Makoto's face.

Haru groaned and slowly sat up, then raised his hand to the side of his head where the pain was emanating from.

Makoto's concerned face only intensified, "Careful Haru-chan, you don't want to hurt yourself more."

"I'm fine Makoto," Haru responded in his deadpan voice.

He tried to sort out what happened as he sat there. He remembered that he was floating in the ocean, not thinking of anything since it was the first day it was warm enough he could come down and swim in the ocean. He must not have been paying attention to his surroundings as usual and a storm came up before he knew it.

He had frantically tried to swim to shore, but something must have hit him in the head because he didn't remember anything else till he woke up on the sand with Makoto kneeling above him.

No wait, there was a vague recollection that was coming to him. He could almost remember someone being in the water with him, holding onto him. The arms had been slender, was it a girl? And then he also remembered something bumping against his legs in the water. It almost felt like fish scales, but it was too large to be a fish.

His eyes opened wide in shock as a thought occurred to him. Was that a mermaid? He looked out at the ocean in consternation. No, it couldn't be a mermaid, there were no such thing... was there?

He looked up at Makoto, "Hey, was there anyone else here when you found me?

Makoto looked a little surprised that he asked that. "Well, it almost looked like there was someone with (H/C) hair here with you when I saw you. But when I reached you there was no one."

Makoto looked at the sand on the other side of Haruka, and he also looked. There were strange marks in the sand next to him. It almost looked like someone had been laying there, and then a giant fish had come along and flung itself back to the ocean.

Haruka placed a hand on the imprint and felt the last of some body heat draining away from the sand.

So there had been someone here with him, probably trying to warm him up.

"Well, let's get you inside and warmed up. Don't want you catching cold again now do we Haru-chan?"

Haruka looked at Makoto to see that he had stood up and was bending over offering his hand, smiling as usual.

He reached up to take his friend's hand, "Would you stop calling me Haru-chan already?"

Makoto chuckled as he pulled up Haruka.

As they walked along the shoreline towards the stairs to the street, Haruka couldn't help but look out at the ocean. Still wondering who it was that had saved him.

Then he heard a splash over at the rocks that didn't sound like water hitting them, it had sounded like someone jumping into the water. When he looked over there all he caught was a small flash of (F/C) and a vague outline of a fish's tail.

Could it really be a mermaid?

It was probable that he'd never know.

XxXxXxXxX

You smiled as you watched the two male humans named Haru and Makoto walk away together.

Well, at least you knew their names now. But that was no doubt all you'll learn about them. You were pretty sure that neither of them saw you. So as long as you didn't reveal your presence to them again, no one would ever have to know about how you saved a human.

Watching them walk away wasn't doing you any good so you jumped back into the ocean to swim home.

_Goodbye Haru, you'll never see me again._

* * *

**A/N: Oh wow, I really liked this one. There's a bit of fluff and angst in it. So much fun.**

**A friend of mine and I came up with this idea at one point of time and I had been way too busy at the time to really write it. Then I discovered a one shot reader insert contest on DeviantArt and she mentioned that one of her favorite characters in Free was Haru, and that you'd get more of a possibility to win if you wrote him. Well, since I had this story in mind already, and I was searching for another fanfic to write, it was just the perfect time to write this one. **

**The contest is for a one shot, and this one will work as a one shot, but I am going to continue this story. But not on DeviantArt, lol. At least until the contest is over. So you lucky readers here on will be getting updates more than my watchers on DeviantArt. I hope you look forward to them. Let me tell you, the story line I have for this story is a really good one.**


End file.
